The Philippines is back on the regional capital market’s map for revitalized shares sale of companies as it marked the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in the country in the past three years.
AllHome Corp. owned by former senator Manuel Villar closed its debut listing in the Philippine Stock Exchange up 1.04 percent at P11.62 per share from an IPO price of P11.50.
The one-stop shop home store raised a total of P14.9 billion from a 1.29 billion common share sale, divided into 1.12 billion primary and secondary shares and another 168.75 million secondary shares owned by holding firm AllValue Holdings Corp., covering the greenshoe option, sold at P11.50.
AllHome joins Thailand’s Asset World Corp., the hospitality and property firm listed by Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, in bringing attention back to the region’s capital market. Asset World’s share sale was the largest IPO by a Thai firm,
At AllHome’s listing ceremony, Villar said the home improvement industry in the Philippines remains “underpenetrated, so we thought of introducing a retail concept with global standards which eventually complements our expertise as the largest homebuilder in the country.”
Villar said his group is also looking at listing its other retail businesses under AllValue Holdings Corp. in the next three years, depending on market condition and maturity of the businesses.
“We have a lot of retail concepts. But this is the first. I have to scale up the other businesses, but we have other companies that are active already. We are still studying the environment.,” said Villar, the second richest man in the Philippines according to the latest Forbes Philippines Rich list.
Aside from AllHome, AllValue’s other retail concepts include The Coffee Project, AllDay Supermarket, AllDay Convenience Store, Bake My Day, AllToys, AllShoppe, Gastroville and AllSports.
Benjamarie Therese Serrano, AllHome president, said the fresh capital raised at the IPO will partially fund AllHome’s store network expansion in the next two years “as we take advantage of the various macro-economic and home improvement industry specific trends,”
“We now have 27 stores in 22 cities and municipalities across the Philippines. With a span of six years, we were able to capture 7.1 percent market share, making us the fastest growing home improvement store in the country,” Serrano said.
Camille Villar, AllHome vice-chairman and daughter of Villar, said the company plans to spend around P3.6 billion for the store expansion or an additional 25 stores, of which 10 will be financed by the IPO proceeds.
About 60 percent of the expansion will be in Mega Manila but the company is also eyeing Luzon such as in areas like such as Cavite, Laguna, Bulacan, Pampanga and Rizal as well as Visayas and Mindanao.
Another Villar-controlled company, Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. meanwhile it is set to register P30 billion worth of retail bonds for offer to the public in three years time, offering P5 billion from the new shelf-registration application.
The P5 billion will be complemented by another P5 billion from an existing shelf-registered bond offer, the remaining tranche.
In August, Vista Land said it still has to launch P34 billion worth of residential projects for the rest of the year. (With Reuters)
